Monday, August 26, 2013

- Josh Perkins, #25 player in the class of 2014 and one of the top point guards committed to Gonzaga on Saturday. This is meaningful because his final 3 were Gonzaga, UCLA, and the Gophers, even if the Gophers were a long shot given that he hadn't visited Minnesota in over a year. Although the Gophers still remain in the running for many top 100 type recruits and others and are on a few Top 5 type lists, with each player that commits elsewhere you can feel Gopher fans' collective butthole pucker just a little bit tighter.

See, that's the thing about taking a gamble such as hiring a 31-year-old head coach with only 1 year of head coaching experience at a mid-major, it only ends up being a good gamble if it works out. As much as it has been awesome seeing the Gophers pop up in a bunch of conversations with stud recruits, it's all for naught if the team ends up with nothing but a bunch of plan C fallback types it's going to add a lot of fuel to the fire that this was a bad hire for a Big Ten school, even if I don't believe that to be the case and I'm pretty sure all those people are either really old or really dumb (Dawger hi!) or big fat assholes.

I also don't think losing out on Josh Perkins is any reason to panic either, because the Gophers were pretty unlikely to get him anyway. At this point a class of J.P. Macura, Lourawls Nairn, Wade Baldwin, Isaiah Whitehead or Rashad Vaughn, and Reid Travis, Paul White, or Josh Martin is both realistic and one of the best classes in Gopher history. There are plenty of back-up options still out there that I'd be happy with as well. Really, we're nowhere near time to panic. Although as a lifelong Gopher fan I completely understand the impulse. Really, I do. I'm actually typing this while hiding under my bed.

- Speaking of Nairn, he's going to be on campus this weekend for an official visit, one of only three he's planning on taking (the other two are to Oklahoma and Indiana). He'll be attending the big Gopher/UNLV football game along with two other recruits, 2014's J.P. Macura and 2015's Alex Illikainen so needless to say, it's a pretty big football game for Gopher hoops. Not to mention that with Rashad Vaughn transferring to Findlay Prep in Nevada for his senior year UNLV has wormed their way into his Top 11 so there's a very real possibility that the winner of this game will vault to the lead for Vaughn's services. Is it likely? No. It's a near certainty.

- In other commitment news class of 2014 point guard Emmanuel Mudiay committed to Southern Methodist over the weekend. This is significant for many reasons, but the main one is that the #2 PG and #5 overall player in the class (according to ESPN) will be attending SMU which is not Kansas or Duke or Kentucky. SMU is his home school in Dallas, and no doubt that had a ton to do with it, as did the fact that the coach is Hall of Famer Larry Brown, but this is absolutely huge. Not only is SMU about to have the best player in their history (I assume) but with Mudiay on board this early he can start working on other big-time recruits and sell them on Brown, SMU, and Dallas. Now, no matter how fast the program rises Brown will get bored and bail in no more than 3 years because that's what he always does, but the next few years just got pretty interesting. Tyus could do the same thing for the Gophers, but unfortunately I'm fairly certain that ship has sailed to Duketown.

- I took WonderbabyTM, who is five years old now by the way, to see the movie Turbo over the weekend and I was pleasantly surprised. Any time you can work in House of Pain's Jump Around, We are the Champions, Snoop Dogg, Eye of the Tiger, and an homage to Bad News Bears in Breaking Training you're generally looking at a winner. Even if it was kind of stupid. Because snails can't talk, you see.

- Remember all that excitement about seeing some young Twins' prospects hit the major league level? Ok maybe not excitement but it something more than boredom. Interest, maybe? Anyway, how horribly has that worked out? Aaron Hicks - demoted twice, hitting .176 at Rochester and now on the DL. Kyle Gibson - good debut, horrible since, no command whatsoever, and now back at AAA. Only Oswaldo Arcia could be considered a success among the rookies mainly due to his young age (22) and his bat (6th in the AL among rookies in batting WAR), although his fielding has been such a disaster he's technically actually been worse than replacement level. Chris Parmelee probably proved he's a AAAA guy once and for all, Vance Worley and Scott Diamond were disasters, Liam Hendriks was Liam Hendriks, and Cole De Vries disappeared. You could get a little bit excited about Sam Deduno if you want, but really only because there's nothing else to grab onto here. It's 2am at the bar, nobody better panned out, and suddenly taking Sam Deduno home is starting to look attractive. I guess what I'm trying to say is that the Twins are drunk.

- It seems with E.J. Manuel hurt and Kevin Kolb's career possibly over there is the very real possibility that the Buffalo Bills will start undrafted free agent QB Jeff Tuel in Week 1 vs. New England (over Matt Leinart, which is in and of itself hilarious). Tuel went to Washington State where he must not have been too shitty. The real issue is for those in survivor leagues. I have always made it a hard and fast rule to never take a road team in those, but with no real clear cut home team to pick the Patriots on the road against Tuel is really tempting. Sometimes breaking the rules is exciting.

- I just started watching Breaking Bad (I know, I know). It's really freaking good. Turns out sometimes the masses are actually correct. I'm only 4 episodes in, but it's good to see Walt see the error of his ways and give up the drug trade. I'm interested to see where the show goes from here with the drug angle eliminated. Must be something pretty awesome, considering how much everybody loves the show.

- I'm weirdly excited about college football, more than I ever have been before despite knowing almost nothing about it, to a shameful level. All I really know is that the games are fun to gamble on, the player props are super fun to gamble on, the games are fun to watch before college basketball starts, and I'm rooting my ass off for Florida this year. Why Florida you ask? Good question.

Last year, probably February sometime, I was perusing one of the gambling sites I used and saw Florida at 20/1 to win the National Championship. This was when the Gators were rolling and ranked in the top 5 and I was like whoa, 20/1 those are great odds! Let me throw $50 down on that and we're goin' Sizzla! A week or so later I go to look at what all bets I have pending and I notice that I accidentally bet on the Gators to win the FOOTBALL National Championship. I don't even know if they're good, but they're in the SEC so as long as they can lose only once or less they should be in ok shape. Also yes I was drinking that night.

"The winner of the UNLV vs MN football game vaults to the lead in the Vaughn sweepstakes"? I just want to make sure I read that correctly. A guy who has one and done aspirations is going to choose his college based on how two also-rans do in a sport that he doesn't even play....is that right? Love your basketball coverage overall so I don't want to be too negative but YIKES.